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We return to our statement that The First remains intact even
when other entities spring from it.
In the case of numbers, the unit remains intact while something
else produces, and thus number arises in dependence on the unit:
much more then does the unit, The One, remain intact in the
principle which is before all beings; especially since the
entities produced in its likeness, while it thus remains intact,
owe their existence to no other, but to its own all-sufficient
power.
And just as there is, primarily or secondarily, some form or idea
from the monad in each of the successive numbers- the later still
participating, though unequally, in the unit- so the series of
Beings following upon The First bear, each, some form or idea
derived from that source. In Number the participation establishes
Quantity; in the realm of Being, the trace of The One establishes
reality: existence is a trace of The One- our word for entity may
probably be connected with that for unity.
What we know as Being, the first sequent upon The One, advanced a
little outward, so to speak, then chose to go no further, turned
inward again and comes to rest and is now the reality and hearth
[ousia and hestia] of the universe. Pressing [with the rough
breathing] on the word for Being [on] we have the word "hen"
[one], an indication that in our very form of speech we tell, as
far as may be, that Being [the weaker] is that which proceeds
from [the stronger] The One. Thus both the thing that comes to be
and Being itself are carriers of a copy, since they are outflows
from the power of The primal One: this power sees and in its
emotion tries to represent what it sees and breaks into speech
"On"; "einai"; "ousia," "hestia" [Existent: Existence: Essence:
Hestia or Hearth], sounds which labour to express the essential
nature of the universe produced by the travail of the utterer and
so to represent, as far as sounds may, the origin of reality.
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